The World’s Largest Porn Site Just Asked Obama to Pardon Edward Snowden

Who would have thought that PornHub would weigh in on a whistleblower case.

MOSCOW, RUSSIA - DECEMBER 2013: (EXCLUSIVE ACCESS; PREMIUM RATES (3X) APPLY) Former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden poses for a photo during an interview in an undisclosed location in December 2013 in Moscow, Russia. Snowden who exposed extensive details of global electronic surveillance by the National Security Agency has been in Moscow since June 2012 after getting temporary asylum in order to evade prosecution by authorities in the U.S. (Photo by Barton Gellman/Getty Images)

If there’s one takeaway from Russia’s controversial ban on the world’s largest pornography website this week, it’s this: Russians might not want American-style democracy, but they certainly want American-style porn.

Sadly for them, a May court decision that determined PornHub should be inaccessible in Russia came into effect this week, when Roskomnadzor, the government agency that handles censoring, officially blocked the site. (To make things even weirder, the judge who started all this doesn’t remember why he even banned the site to begin with.)

PornHub figured it would give Roskomnadzor a chance to reconsider its decision, and even dangled an alluring incentive: If the agency unblocked the site, its employees would get free premium access.

.@roscomnadzor if we give you guys a Pornhub Premium account, will you un ban Pornhub in Russia?

That’s when PornHub decided it was time to get U.S. President Barack Obama involved. After all, there are plenty of American citizens living in Russia who now won’t have access to PornHub’s content, and Obama should be concerned about that. Especially when it comes to Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who leaked classified information about American surveillance programs and is now under temporary asylum in Russia.

The only way to save him from a pornless existence in Russia, PornHub suggested, would be to finally pardon him for those leaks and let him come home.

Or maybe things aren’t so gloomy for users in Russia after all. The same PornHub Twitter account later clarified that the “.ru” version of the site still works. It’s just the coveted American content that will remain out of reach — for now at least.